


So I put my phone down / Fall into the night with you

by Emjen_Enla



Series: Doom Days [3]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Drug Abuse, F/M, Gen, I don't know what to tag this, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Laudanum, Long-Suffering Lizzie Stark, Post-Season/Series 05, Tommy Shelby's Unending Paranoia, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:53:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25653931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: Lizzie goes to the Midland Hotel for a report on Michael and Gina and everything that happens afterwards.
Relationships: Lizzie Stark & Frances, Lizzie Stark & Michael Gray, Polly Gray & Lizzie Stark, Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark
Series: Doom Days [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762021
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	So I put my phone down / Fall into the night with you

**Wednesday, December 11 th, 1929**

Lizzie Shelby née Stark had never quite been comfortable at the Midland Hotel. Sure, she’d been there plenty of times, especially back in 1925 when Tommy was the place’s most loyal customer. Whenever she set foot in the building she worried that someone would realize she had been the kind of whore who worked the streets and throw her out, even though she was married to an MP now and those days were far behind her.

That knowledge didn’t ease the apprehension she felt as she climbed the front steps leading into the hotel. It was two days since the night she’d called Ada’s in admittedly unseemly panic because she couldn’t figure out where Tommy was and been given a list of opaque instructions that she was expected to just understand. Fortunately, she’d known Tommy Shelby long enough and had been doing similar tasks for him for long enough to understand those instructions, which was why she was at the Midland today. She’d gone to speak to Uncle Charlie the day before—apparently Shelby Company Ltd. was smuggling opium these days, it would have been nice to get a heads up about that one—but her own discomfort at the Midland had caused her to procrastinate on that until today.

She’d never quite gotten used to entering fancy places like this and not being looked at like she didn’t belong. Now though men still ogled at her like they’d been doing for years it was understood that she belonged here, which she guessed was an improvement, albeit not much of one.

She took a seat at a table—the same one Tommy had sat at years ago just before the start of the Italian Vendetta ironically—and waited. She could pick out the whores as they moved through the lobby. Tommy had fucked every single girl who worked here (well most of them; Tommy didn’t do blondes post-Grace). That was something that hadn’t bothered her until she’d had his daughter. She wasn’t even sure why she was so worried about him being unfaithful given she’d had a front row seat for so many men’s dalliances and had known going in that Tommy was unlikely to be true to his vows. Perhaps this was yet another instance of her trying to find a way to make sure Ruby had a better life than she’d had.

After a few minutes Billy came over. “Can I get anything for you, Mrs. Shelby?” he asked. She was surprised he even knew her married name. Given what Tommy came here for she’d figured it was unlikely that the subject of his marriage to her had ever come up.

“My husband sent me,” she said. “He said that I was supposed to get your report and then pay you.”

It was obvious that Billy had no concept of how dangerous working for the Peaky Blinders was because he immediately nodded. He didn’t ask a single question to confirm that Tommy had indeed sent her. That could be a problem, and she would have to mention it to Tommy. He liked to know when people he was paying off couldn’t be trusted to be discrete.

“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you all again so soon,” Billy said.

“Soon?” Lizzie echoed. The reason Tommy had sent her to the Midland was because Michael and Gina were staying here. Tommy was probably getting a report from Billy once or twice a week on everything the couple did and everyone they spoke to.

“Does Mr. Shelby have another job for me?”

“What do you mean, ‘another job?’” Lizzie asked over the sound of her stomach sinking. “I’m here for your report on Michael and Gina Gray.”

“Oh,” Billy blinked in surprise. “Mrs. Gray lead me to believe that Mr. Shelby would not be wanting another report.”

“Mrs. Gray?” Lizzie repeated. “What did Gina tell you?”

“No, not the young Mrs. Gray,” Billy said. “Mrs. Elizabeth Gray was here. She said that Mr. Shelby found a house for Mr. and Mrs. Gray and that they no longer needed to stay at the hotel. They left with her.”

For a moment, all Lizzie could do was stare as that sunk in. She knew that Tommy and Polly had had a falling out. Of course, Tommy hadn’t mentioned it, but on Saturday Lizzie had tried calling Polly to let her know that the scheme had gone bad, and to warn her not to trust Johnny Dogs. Polly had hung up the instant Lizzie had mentioned Tommy.

“When did this happen?” she asked slowly.

Billy fidgeted nervously, it was obvious her reaction had told him something had happened. “Friday,” he said. “In the afternoon. I don’t understand. Is something wrong?”

Lizzie contained her frustration. Getting angry at Billy wouldn’t do anything. She’d already established that he was too trusting for this kind of thing and he knew Michael and Gina were family. Since Tommy had probably told Billy the bare minimal when instructing him to keep an eye on them, Billy probably didn’t even realize the full extent of the involved.

She pulled the money she’d brought to pay Billy with out of her purse and handed it over. “No, it’s fine, Billy,” she lied. “Can I use a phone? Preferably a private one.”

Billy lead her to a small room with a telephone in it. When he stood in the doorway, she gave him a look. “That will be all,” she told him in the tone of voice she’d learned from talking to the servants at Arrow House. “I can find my own way out.”

He nodded. “Very good, ma’am, have a nice day,” and he left.

Lizzie sighed and rang Tommy’s office at Parliament. The phone rang and rang and just when Lizzie was starting to think no one was there he picked up. “Hello?”

“Tom, it’s me,” she said.

“Lizzie,” Tommy said slowly, but not his usual type of slowly. “How are you?” He sounded vague, the way he always did when he was high off his ass and trying to hide it. She suppressed a groan. Anyone who thought Tommy was normally difficult to deal with had obviously never dealt with him high.

“I’m at the Midland,” she said. “Paying off your bills. Do it yourself next time. I’m going to go downtown after this.” She waited for a response but there was none. “Tommy,” she prodded. “I’m going downtown. Do you need anything?”

“What? No,” Tommy said. “But you should go.”

“Alright,” Lizzie said, pursing her lips, she pulled a cigarette out of her purse and lit it. “I’ll talk to later then?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said vaguely and hung up.

Lizzie sighed and finished her cigarette before she got moving. The simple way to leave the hotel would be to simply go out the front door, but until they knew who had betrayed them and how far their grasp went, that probably wasn’t a good idea. Instead Lizzie turned left when leaving the small room and slid through a door into the part of the hotel only intended for the servants. As the wife of an MP she wasn’t supposed to be back here, but she kept her head down and walked like she belonged and she was out the side door into an alley before anyone was any wiser.

A public telephone book stood on the corner, looking like an old friend you hadn’t seen in years. Lizzie settled down on a bench just outside the booth and lit another cigarette while she waited.

The minutes stretched by. Lizzie was beginning to suspect Tommy hadn’t understood. That was somewhere between frustrating and worrying. She wondered if this was what Tommy felt like all the time.

Finally, after another five or ten minutes then the phone rang. Lizzie jumped to her feet, stepped into the booth and lifted the phone off it’s hook. “Hello?” she said.

“Lizzie,” Tommy greeted her, and she held back a sigh of relief. He’d understood. After she’d called him he would have left Parliament and found a phone booth to call from. The phone booth Lizzie was using was one of several they’d pre-chosen for this purpose. They’d worked out this method of avoiding being listened in on by people who might have paid off the exchange girls years before while the rest of the family was in prison, thought they hadn’t had reason to use it recently. “What did you find out?”

He sounded much more present now. Perhaps the walk and the fresh air had sobered him up some, which was also a relief. Because she needed him somewhat competent if they were going to solve the problem they were now facing,

“I talked to Uncle Charlie yesterday,” she said, figuring it might be better to start with the less catastrophic news. “He says everything is going well. What exactly is he smuggling for you? I got the impression it was something new.” She prodded, wondering if she could get him to tell her it was opium.

Tommy hummed but didn’t answer the question. Of course, he didn’t. “And what did you learn at the Midland?”

“It appears you decided that Michael and Gina no longer needed to say at the Midland,” she said.

There was a long pause. “What?” Tommy asked. His voice was flat. There was no way of telling what he was thinking.

“On Friday Polly went to the Midland and checked Michael and Gina out,” Lizzie said. “Billy was under the impression it was on your orders.”

Tommy didn’t say anything.

“I have no idea what the hell went down between you and Polly, but I do know that you didn’t tell her that Michael and Gina could leave the Midland,” Lizzie said. “What happened there?”

Tommy still didn’t say anything, but Lizzie heard him exhale shakily and realized what was happening. There were a lot of downsides to a Tommy Shelby with a laudanum addiction, but the paranoia was by far the worst. He was probably panicking, convinced this was proof that Michael was really out to get him.

Paranoia and Tommy Shelby had an interesting history. Anxious and paranoid was actually his default state even when sober, but when he was sober he hid it so well that Lizzie hadn’t noticed it until the aftermath of Charlie’s kidnapping and even then, she hadn’t noticed how pervasive those feelings were until she’d married him and moved into Arrow House. Plus, back then his paranoia had focused on things like Shelby Company Ltd. getting caught smuggling alcohol or the children getting kidnapped, both things which seemed a lot less paranoid once you acknowledged that they were both well within the realm of possibility.

This new form of paranoia was different, both because he was incapable of hiding it, and because the things he was paranoid about had changed drastically. It was no secret that Tommy didn’t really trust the rest of the family, but previously that had always seemed to be because he thought they were all idiots and would mess up his carefully laid plans if they knew too much. Until recently, he hadn’t seemed to entertain the idea that they might be out to get him. Lizzie wasn’t sure how to deal with Tommy’s insistence that Michael was trying to steal his crown. She wasn’t even sure if that word choice (“steal my crown”) was yet another delusion from all the laudanum or if Tommy really did conceptualize the family as a monarchy where he was the king and they were all his subjects and just generally had the sense not to mention it.

“Tommy,” she said, trying to head off the panicked spiral she knew was happening on the other end of the phone. “Take a deep breath.”

“She’s helping him,” Tommy said, his voice thin like he was trying not to shout. He sounded gutted. Given Tommy and Polly had spent most of the last decade at each other’s throats it was easy to forget that she was about the one person alive today whose opinion he actually cared about. “She betrayed—”

“No one’s betraying anyone,” Lizzie said, cutting that thought off before he could finish it. “Be rational, Tom. She’s angry about whatever blowout you two had and knew getting Michael and Gina out of the Midland would piss you off. That’s petty, but not traitorous.” At least she hoped that was all it was. Right now, all she could do was try to keep Tommy from making ill-advised decisions based on the irrational paranoia that Michael and now Polly were out to get him. As things at the rally showed, someone really was out to get them, and that couldn’t get solved while Tommy was convinced members of the family were plotting against him.

“She doesn’t even know Aberama’s dead,” Tommy said.

“What?” Lizzie burst out. “You didn’t call and tell her?”

“I tried,” Tommy said. “She hung up on me before I could.”

“Fuck,” Lizzie rested her head against the side of the phone booth. “I’ll go over to hers and tell her I guess.”

“Not until we know where Michael is,” Tommy said. He sounded like he was at least trying to sound calm. Too bad he was utterly failing.

“Tommy, Polly needs to know as soon as possible,” Lizzie said. “She and Aberama were engaged. Besides, I’ll bet anything that Michael and Gina are at her house, so this way I can confirm where they are.”

“We don’t know what they’re planning,” Tommy said.

“They’re probably not planning anything at all save annoying you,” Lizzie said, trying not to sound annoyed herself. They were going in circles. “I’m going to go over there and talk to Polly.”

Tommy was silent. Lizzie let him think for a minute. “Call me afterwards,” he finally said.

“I will,” Lizzie said.

He hung up.

~~~~

It was hard to believe that when Tommy had first bought Polly’s house, Lizzie had viewed it as a mansion. The little house was safe and clean and in a nice part of town. It was more than Lizzie had ever dreamed of ever living in herself. Now that she lived in an actual mansion, Lizzie was surprised by how small and plain it looked.

She parked her car on the street and got out. She could have had a chauffeur to cart her around and—based on her interactions with the other MP’s wives Tommy had subjected her to over the years—perhaps that was what she was supposed to do? She wasn’t sure, but she liked driving so she preferred to drive herself.

She took a moment to straighten her coat and hat, before marching up the front walk towards the house. Despite the unseasonably sunny day, the curtains were drawn tightly over the windows. Lizzie thought she saw the corner of one curtain move as she approached the house, which didn’t really surprise her.

She reached the front stoop and rapped on the door. When no one answered she knocked again. And again.

“Polly, I know you’re in there!” Lizzie called. “Your car’s in the drive! Open the door!”

There was a long pause and just when she thought that Polly was just going to ignore her and pretend not to be home, the door opened and Polly glared out at her, body positioned to fill the whole door. “What do you want?”

“To talk,” Lizzie said. “I have something you need to know.”

“You can tell Tommy that sending you here to do his dirty work isn’t going to work,” Polly said. “I know his strategies.”

“He didn’t send me,” Lizzie said, though she knew Polly would never believe her. Especially since she wasn’t going to say that Tommy had tried to convince her not to come. That wouldn’t go over well especially given what she’d come to say. “I came on my own. There’s something you need to know and I think it would be best if you didn’t hear it over the phone.”

Polly went tense. She wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t heard from Aberama since at least Friday. She probably already had some idea what Lizzie was going to tell her. Lizzie watched her decide if she wanted to know.

Polly sighed and stepped back, swinging the door open. “Come in, then.”

Lizzie stepped into the house’s cozy entranceway and took off her hat. The house was still and silent as a tomb. Too still and silent to be natural.

“Also, I know Michael and Gina are here,” she said, raising her voice a little so it would carry to the upstairs as well. “There’s no point in pretending otherwise.”

Polly didn’t comment, but Lizzie heard a door close upstairs so she figured her point had been made.

She and Polly made their way into the sitting room, which was about what Lizzie had expected given the welcome she’d gotten. If things had been less tense she and Polly might have sat in the kitchen and had tea.

Lizzie sat on the couch and watched while Polly paced to stand before the fireplace, her hands behind her back. She and Tommy were remarkably alike in some ways.

“Well?” Polly asked.

“You might want to sit down,” Lizzie said.

“I’ll stand,” Polly said. “Just tell me what happened to bring you here when you must have heard that I’m no longer on the board of Shelby Company Ltd.”

In fact, Lizzie hadn’t known that, but she contained her surprise through years of long practice. “As I’m sure you know, there was plan in place for the rally on Friday night,” she admitted. “It didn’t go according to plan.”

“Cut to the chase,” Polly said. “We both know there’s only one reason you’d be here to talk about this; what happened to Aberama?”

Lizzie had wanted to find a way to break it gently, but in the end perhaps it was easier to just say it and get it over with. “He was killed.”

She watched Polly take the blow. Polly had a great deal of self-possession, but she did not have Tommy’s somewhat unsettling ability to turn off all emotion. Her lips pressed together and her hands clasped together. When she next spoke, she sounded a bit strangled. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Lizzie said.

Polly looked away and took a visibly deep breath. Her lips were a bloodless line. “I want to see his body.”

Lizzie winced internally. She really should have known that would be the first thing Polly would ask. “You can’t.” She said. “Arthur and Johnny Dogs got Aberama’s body out, but we couldn’t have any kind of major funeral without someone getting suspicious.”

Polly didn’t necessarily go still because she’d been basically still before, but something about the nature of her stillness that changed, going from grief-stricken to enraged. “Tommy just had them burn him!” she growled, whirling around to face Lizzie fully.

“Arthur burned Aberama’s body,” Lizzie corrected though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. No one would believe that Arthur had been the one calling the shots where Aberama was concerned, because under normal circumstances Tommy would never had allowed it. In fact, Lizzie had only half-believed Arthur’s story of what had happened after the assassination attempt had gone sour until they’d found Tommy in Arrow House’s kitchen on Saturday and she’d seen how beside himself he was.

Unsurprisingly, Polly ignored her. “He left him there and didn’t even think to tell me,” she snarled. “I’ve been waiting by the phone for days! This is a sick punishment for resigning from the company!”

“He told me tried to call you on Saturday but you hung up on him,” Lizzie said. Polly didn’t reply, which Lizzie took to mean that probably had actually happened.

Lizzie took a deep breath and referred back to the script she’d come up with for this conversation on her drive over. “Because of the obvious volatility of the situation involving Bingley Hall, it had to be done. If Mosley figures out we were behind that we’ll all hang. The company isn’t enough to protect us from that.”

It was obvious Polly was thinking the same thing. “And here’s where it starts,” she mused, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. Her hands were shaking and tears were gathering in her eyes, but Lizzie pretended not to notice. “Don’t think I don’t know what he’s doing sending you here. He was betrayed on Friday and now we’re all suspect, especially me.”

“No one in the family is suspect,” Lizzie said and spoke over Polly when the other woman tried to protest. “No one in the family is suspect. The family is trustworthy, Pol. Always has been. You know that, I know that, Tommy knows that.”

“Does he?” Polly asked.

Lizzie had no idea, but she had to hope that somewhere under all the drugged paranoia Tommy knew the family was just as trustworthy as it ever had been; getting to the bottom of what had happened on Friday night would be too difficult otherwise. “He does,” she said.

“Liar,” Polly snapped and turned away. “Get out of my house. I don’t want to hear any more of this. I don’t need to stand here and listen to you insult my intelligence in my own home. Get out.”

Under normal circumstances, Lizzie might have fought, might have insisted that Polly stop projecting her anger at Tommy onto her, but there were tears gathering in Polly’s eyes and she had just lost her fiancé. Now was not the time to fight this battle. Lizzie stood up, gathered her purse and hat and left the room.

…And walked right into Michael who was standing just outside the door not even bothering to hide the fact that he’d been eavesdropping.

“You want something?” Lizzie asked.

“Tommy in London?” he asked.

“He’ll be back at the end of the week,” Lizzie said. “If you need him sooner, you’d probably be better off calling.”

“No. That’s alright,” Michael said and stepped aside. “Have a nice afternoon.”

Lizzie shook her head and left the house without another word.

~~~~

She completely forgot to call Tommy and report on her visit to Polly’s. By the time she got back to Arrow House, it was time for supper and then she spent time with the children until their bedtimes. Lizzie was quietly closing Ruby’s bedroom door when she became aware of Frances lingering at the end of the hall. “Do you want something, Frances?” she called, her tone perhaps a bit harsh. She didn’t quite like or trust Frances. The housekeeper and Tommy were thick as thieves and it was difficult to trust someone who you knew for certain would report on your every word and action if asked to. She was pretty sure Frances didn’t like her either.

Frances didn’t respond immediately which was unusual for her since she never seemed to do anything without absolute certainty. “Frances?” Lizzie prodded when the moment had gone on a little too long.

“May I talk to you for a moment, Mrs. Shelby?” Frances ventured. “It’s about Mr. Shelby.”

“Of course,” Lizzie said, her stomach sinking. She wasn’t exactly sure what Frances had come to say, but she was sure it couldn’t be anything but terrible. Anything else and Frances would have been talking to Tommy directly.

“Can we go someplace private?” Frances asked.

“Of course,” Lizzie repeated and lead Frances to her and Tommy’s bedroom—not the master bedroom because no one had slept in that room since Grace had died—because it was close and the only thing she could think of on short notice.

“Well?” Lizzie asked when the door was closed firmly between them and the rest of the house.

“On Saturday morning…” Frances began, swallowed and then began the tale in earnest.

Lizzie listened in silence. She wasn’t sure what emotion she felt in response to the tale. It wasn’t shock and it wasn’t horror. It was more of a grim acknowledgment. She’d known Tommy was suicidal, or at the very least strongly suspected it. However, even though she’d used that knowledge as a weapon the night he had told her that in his head he still paid her for it, she hadn’t thought he’d ever actually attempt suicide. Looking back, she wasn’t sure why she’d thought that beyond that suicide seemed unlike him.

Even though she hadn’t thought he would ever actually try it, she wasn’t actually surprised. Perhaps, she reflected, studying her reaction to Frances’s story, she’d known when she’d been calling all over London looking for Tommy on Monday night. Perhaps she’d known from the moment she and Arthur had found Tommy in Arrow House’s kitchen on Saturday morning. Maybe she’d known even before that, when they’d gone out into the field looking for him. No matter when she’d first realized, she wasn’t surprised now.

She sat up for a while after Frances left, smoking. So far as she knew, she was the only person the family who had seen the current version of Tommy’s will, the one which de facto handed her the whole company—the “throne” to use Tommy’s words. He’d never expressly forbidden her from talking about it, but for whatever reason she never had. Possibly, that was because she still didn’t quite believe it. In the old days, back when Shelby Company Ltd. was just a dream slapped on the family betting shop, it had always been understood that if something happened to Tommy Polly was in charge. Then as they moved up in the world and became more legitimate a more legitimate heir had also begun to be seen as a necessity. Most of the family had assumed that heir was Michael—including, obviously, Michael—and Lizzie was fairly sure that it wasn’t until the last family meeting that most of the family had even noticed that Tommy had never given any indication he supported Michael as his eventual successor. Hell, the only reason Lizzie had known differently had been because last Christmas Tommy had handed her a document promising her complete control over the family fortune in lieu of a Christmas present.

Of course, if you were being technical, it wasn’t complete control over the family fortune. Technically, Tommy’s will named her guardian over all his assets until Charlie turned eighteen and inherited, but given that Charlie was seven years old and that Tommy de facto owned two-thirds of Shelby Company Ltd. by virtue of being guardian of John’s share of the company—a hasty 1925 patch job necessitated by the fact John hadn’t had a will that somehow no one had ever found time to deal with properly, perhaps by Tommy’s design for all Lizzie fucking knew—it was basically the same thing. If Lizzie was in this marriage for the power—and sometimes she wasn’t sure that she wasn’t—Tommy offing himself would work perfectly in her favor.

She smoked her way through two more cigarettes before she felt like her thoughts were clear enough that she could decide what to do. Then she got up, went downstairs and picked up the parlor phone.

One of the annoying things about Arrow House was that the only private room with a phone in it was Tommy’s office, which was always locked when he wasn’t in it—or at least it always was save for that night with Johnny Dogs—so Lizzie had to make this call standing in the parlor where any of the maids might hear.

It wasn’t quite that late yet, so Ada picked up promptly. “Hi, Ada,” Lizzie greeted. “Can I talk to Tommy?”

“Tommy’s not here,” Ada said, sounding a bit confused. “Have you tried his apartment?”

Of course, he wasn’t. Lizzie should have known better than to think that he’d ever do something simply because she’d asked him to. “We’d talked about him staying with you this week,” she said.

“He didn’t mention anything to me about that,” Ada said.

“Of course, he didn’t,” Lizzie grumbled.

“Do you think something’s wrong?” Ada asked, in a tone that suggested she was very much aware that something could be wrong. Lizzie always forgot that Ada saw more of Tommy than the rest of them did these days.

Still, Lizzie didn’t want to involve Ada in all of this any more than necessary; she had enough on with Ben Younger’s death. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Are you sure?” Ada asked, sounding far from convinced. “I can drive over to the apartment to check on him if you want.”

“No, it’s nothing,” Lizzie lied. “I just have some figures I wanted to give to him and he wasn’t answering the apartment phone.”

“Really,” Ada said, flatly.

“Don’t worry about it, Ada,” Lizzie said. “Have a nice night.” Then she hung up and immediately called Tommy’s apartment.

Predictably there was no answer.

She called back repeatedly until she was sure he wasn’t there and just ignoring her—annoying Tommy into dealing with you was generally a fairly reliable strategy if you had no other options and were therefore willing to deal with how pissy he’d be about it afterwards. She called the office a couple times too for good measure, but also got no response.

She leaned her forehead against the wall and let air hiss out between her teeth. It was probably fine, she told herself. Most likely he’d just finally passed out from all the laudanum or from exhaustion. It would be fine. She’d call him again in the morning and he’d be annoyed at her for not reporting on Michael and Gina’s whereabouts as soon as she’d left Polly’s house. It would be fine.

She tried to believe it.


End file.
